Forensic Analysis · Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology · as of Nov 10, 2026
Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. (DNA)
A forensic read on Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-16.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-51.1%
ROE
-25.1%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -16.7, placing it in the Distress zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of NOA).
What the filings flag
+75.4%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +75.4% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by payables paid down 25% against -25% in revenue and receivables up +10% against revenue -25%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 57% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 75.4%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.Accruals ratio: the year-over-year change in net operating assets, relative to their own average.NOA (net operating assets): the money tied up in running the business, operating assets minus operating liabilities.
52d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 35 to 52 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +10% vs revenue -25%). Receivables are outrunning sales — a flag for aggressive revenue recognition or slipping collections. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 25 → 35 → 52 days — the latest step continues a climb that was already under way, which is the persistence that separates a collection problem from a busy quarter. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-32%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.DSO (days sales outstanding): the average days the company waits to collect cash after a sale.
-31.8%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -31.8% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -122.5%. After-tax operating profit was ($683M) in FY2023 and ($249M) in FY2025, with operating income at -343.8% of revenue in FY2023, -246.5% in FY2024 and -185.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +40% across FY2023–FY2025, from $557M to $783M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -122.5% the older base was already earning. $255M of the $783M base at FY2025 is short-term investments (32.6%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so the loss on the operating capital is larger than this rate shows.
+6.8%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +14% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+6.8%/yr). The count is growing — 48.6M shares in FY2023, 55.5M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~6.8% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~12%.
48% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 48% of revenue in FY2025 — about $1.47 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 6.8% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
$48M
FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $48M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2024 ($48M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$170.2M
Revenue Growth YoY-25.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-17.7%
Net Margin-183.8%
Free Cash Flow-$178.7M
Return on Equity-51.1%
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?